Content advisory: This article contains references to sexual harassment, sexually explicit material, threatening behavior, and CSEM/CSAM, please take care while reading.
The internet is a scary place — you think you know somebody, and then they turn out to be something else. It seems like every week some beloved YouTuber or Streamer is being outed for some shady behavior. Although in the case of Vaush, a major recent slip up on one of his streams may have proven that he might just be what everybody thought he was, although the 30 year old streamer has a history of controversies going way back to 2017.
Who is Vaush?
Vaush, who’s real name is Ian Kochinski, is a left-wing/Libertarian YouTuber and Twitch streamer who has gained a following for his debates with others. He first began by appearing in political streamer Destiny’s videos in which he would debate with him under the name IrishLaddie. Whilst Destiny leaned more towards the center, Vaush was a lot further left, following the ideology of Marxism which made for interesting content and allowed him to gain a following of his own pretty fast.
However, Vaush became known for being somewhat radical as well as being pretty provocative, making some extreme arguments that, when heard out of context, could sound downright insane. For many, this was part of the fun of watching him; he’s very confrontational and aggressive, especially when it comes to discussions with people whose ideologies lean further right or more authoritarian than his, and his attitude has certainly left him in hot water many times before. Often in his debates he resorts to labeling his opposition as neo-Nazis, white supremacists, or Holocaust deniers.
On top of that, the list of bad things Vaush has said and done outside of his streams is pretty long, and includes some upsetting topics, but we’re going to try and lay them all out chronologically.
Sexual harassment
Starting in 2017, Vaush began chatting on Discord with a user by the name of Poppy. You probably know how this one ends, but in 2019, after months of chatting, Poppy would release the DMs exposing Vaush as a bit of a creep, to put it lightly. The messages showed that he had made multiple unwanted sexual advances, all of which were rejected; he then went on to send an unsolicited photo of his penis, and he topped it all off by making a rape threat. After their friendship ended but before the messages were leaked Vaush actually put the blame on Poppy, claiming that her “misappropriate [sic] use of feminist rhetoric” had been the reason for their friendship ending.
Ian didn’t really face any harsh consequences for this, although he and Destiny got into a pretty intense debate which was live streamed at the time. In the stream, Destiny outright accuses a very flustered Vaush of lying, as he tries to shift the blame and excuse his behavior towards Poppy. He later apologised in a video uploaded to YouTube in 2019; overall, though, he was able to rebrand, dropping the name IrishLaddie and going as Vaush instead.
Vaush on Israel and antisemitism
The same year as the Poppy drama, Vaush would also find himself banned from Twitch for stating that the U.S. should begin a bombing campaign in Israel, labeling it as a “fascist ethnostate.” This is one of those times when his provocative nature got him into trouble; basically, many onlookers felt calling for the U.S. to start a war against Israel crosses the line into antisemitism. And this isn’t the only time Vaush has been accused of that. Most notably, in 2021, he made a joke about Aaron Maté’s father, himself a Holocaust survivor, although Vaush claims to have not known that at the time he made the offending joke.
Vaush’s most controversial opinion
But we’re not done yet. Vaush has expressed some very extreme views in his streams, such as his opinions regarding CSAM/CSEM, more colloquially referred to as child pornography, which have led to accusations of pedophilia. One of his most infamous quotes has to be his argument that “it is possible for an adult and a child sexual relationship and for it to have positive outcomes on the child as well.” He has also stated more than once in his discord servers that the age of consent should be lowered. However, due to his nature to often make edgy comments about these things to get a reaction, it can be difficult to tell if he really stands by any of this.
Of course, that’s not the only time the topic of age and consent has come up in conversation with Vaush; he’s also gone on record numerous times in his videos saying things such as “I have yet to hear a convincing moral or legal argument as to why possession of child pornography should be illegal.” This is just one of many quotes from the YouTuber defending this point of view, such as this clip where he equates buying a computer to buying CSEM.
Now, a lot of these cases were from a few years ago, so the argument could be made that Vaush has changed since then — maybe he was just trying to be provocative, or play “devil’s advocate,” right? Unfortunately, things get even worse with this year’s most recent development. A clip from Vaush’s stream earlier this month has been making the rounds online; in it we see him accidentally open a file on his desktop which contains pornographic cartoon images involving horses, and “Loli.”
If you don’t know what a Loli is, it’s a trope in anime whereby a character, usually a girl, looks like a child but is actually much older, usually thousands of years old. If you don’t know what a horse is, I can’t help you. Obviously none of this really lends to the case for Vaush not being a pedophile, and people on the internet have found it equally disgusting, funny, and sad at the same time. The clip itself is out there on the internet if you so desire to view it with your own two eyes.
Vaush has since released another “context” video addressing the pedophilia accusations, in which he admits to making bad arguments and “stupid” comments at times, especially in his earlier content. Most of the past controversies he has addressed in the past, but his reasoning for it all is that his statements have been taken out of context, and that he made his extreme arguments in order to get his point across better, but that he’s grown since then. That may be true; we know that Vaush has a tendency to say shocking and provocative things, but it’s hard to blame people for making these harsh accusations against him when he only seems to be digging a bigger hole for himself.
